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Member info

  • FACULTY:
    Faculty of Engineering and Architecture
  • DEPARTMENT:
    Department of Electronics and Information Systems (ELIS – EA06)
  • RESEARCH GROUP:
    IBiTech – Biommeda (Biofluid, Tissue and Solid Mechanics for Medical Applications)
  • FUNCTION:
    Assistant professor
  • WORK ADDRESS:
    Campus UZ – Blok B – entrance 36, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000 Gent, Belgium
  • SUMMARY:
    The core expertise of IBiTech-Biommeda focuses on computational and experimental modelling of biofluids, tissue and medical device mechanics as tools for personalized medicine, as well as molecular modelling. Research at Biommeda typically aims to support a better understanding and diagnosis of pathophysiological problems, patient-specific treatment planning, and medical device design. Within Biommeda, prof. Debbaut focuses on the use of computational biofluid mechanics as a tool for personalized medicine by studying organ perfusion (e.g. liver and kidney in the context of transplantation, ex vivo perfusion, pathologies and therapies) and mass transport phenomena related to drug transport and lymph flow modeling (e.g. development of a micropump device to treat lymphedema). Currently, her main research areas are targeted and locoregional drug delivery for cancer treatment (e.g. transarterial therapies for liver cancer, intraperitoneal chemotherapy, biophysics of tumorous tissues) and treatment planning for minimally invasive procedures (e.g. robotic surgery for partial nephrectomy procedures and catheter-guided interventions in the brain). The computational models and experimental approaches used (in vitro and ex vivo flow models, tissue characterization tests, image processing) are also applicable for tissue engineering purposes (e.g. to model cell distributions after recellularization for whole organ bioengineering applications or artificial organs, to characterize scaffold properties such as permeability etc.).

Prof. Debbaut holds a 100% professorship at the Biommeda research group within Ghent University and focuses mainly on the use of computational biofluid mechanics as a tool for personalized medicine by studying applications related to organ perfusion, mass transport phenomena in the context of targeted and locoregional drug delivery, and lymph flow.

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